Teen Tom Cruise

Taylor Lautner turns 18 next week. Last night he was sitting courtside at the Lakers game. Seems like a normal famous teen Wednesday night activity, right? Sure, totally normal. Except he was with adults. Surrounded by adults. A 17 year old who never seems to have any friends his own age. Aside from being photographed on dates with Taylor Swift, how often does he roll with a younger crowd? Where are his friends?

Note to Lautner Management: must audition friends. Because while they’ve overmanufactured him on so many other fronts, creating a teen Tom Cruise in his painfully uncool earnestness, and sold him to us as a leaping, flipping, karate kicking hunk, they’ve also forgotten to give him a proper entourage, one that doesn’t include his agent and his publicist and his personal trainer and, sometimes, even his DAD.

That’s the thing about child stars, non? They spend entirely too much time with grownups.

Teen Tom Cruise will be heading to Miami this weekend for the Super Bowl. He’s participating in the DirecTV Celebrity Beach Bowl.